Is "zero additive" really additive-free? How to avoid excessive intake of salt, oil and sugar?

　　国家卫生健康委、国家市场监督管理总局3月27日公布59项食品安全国家标准及修改单。消费者特别关心的“零添加”、食物过敏、盐油糖标示等内容，均有明确规定，旨在进一步提升食品安全保障水平，维护公众健康，促进食品产业高质量发展。

Highlight 1: Avoid misleading consumption such as "zero additive".

Is "no additive" and "zero additive" really healthier and better? Previously, the information on some food labels was misleading to consumers.

Take a certain fruit juice drink as an example: the food label says "no added sucrose", but in fact, sucrose is only one of the big family of "sugar", and the ingredient list may also contain fructose, fructose syrup, etc. "The claim of 'no added sucrose' in such products does not mean that the product does not contain sugar, but it is easy for consumers to misunderstand." Zhong Kai, director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, said.

In order to avoid misleading consumers, after the implementation of the new version of the General Principles for the Labeling of Prepackaged Food, pre-packaged foods are no longer allowed to use terms such as "no additives" and "zero additives" to emphasize food ingredients.

In addition, according to the new standard, the content of ingredients or ingredients mentioned in the name of the food must be indicated in the food label, e.g. bird's nest mooncakes must be labelled with the content of bird's nest.

Zhu Lei, director of the Standards Center of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that the new standard strengthens the quantitative labeling requirements, which is to standardize the chaos in the industry and guide the correct consumption cognition.

Highlight 2: Allergenic substances need to be labeled mandatorily

Studies have shown that the rate of food allergy in China has been increasing in recent years, and it has become one of the factors affecting food safety that cannot be ignored.

In order to minimize the probability of food allergies, the new standard announced this time requires mandatory labeling of allergens in food.

Zhu Lei introduced that when prepackaged foods use gluten-containing grains, crustaceans, fish, eggs, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts and their products as food ingredients, it is necessary to emphasize in the ingredient list in bold and underlined, or through allergenic substances below the ingredient list, to indicate the allergenic substances contained in the food.

"People with a history of food allergies can pay special attention to the information of allergenic substances on food labels in the future." Zhu Lei said.

Highlight 3: Special attention is paid to the needs of infants and young children

Infant formula for special medical purposes, tailored for babies with special medical conditions or medical conditions. The revised General Principles for Infant Formula for Special Medical Purposes have added 6 new product categories, including ketogenic formula, anti-reflux formula, and abnormal fat metabolism formula.

Fang Haiqin, director of the Nutrition Department of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, introduced that the new products mainly serve infants with special medical conditions such as refractory epilepsy, growth retardation, and fatty acid metabolism and absorption disorders, and also cover some infant groups with rare diseases.

In addition, the newly revised standards for cereal supplementary food for infants and young children and canned supplementary food for infants and young children have also been supplemented and revised in terms of expanding product categories, nutritional composition indicators, and energy supply ratio of added sugars in response to the special requirements of infant groups.

"Based on scientific risk assessment, reasonable indicators and scope are set to ensure that the food given to the baby is nutritious and safe." Fang Haiqin said.

Highlight 4: Reduce salt, oil and sugar can be seen on the nutrition label

When choosing food scientifically, it is best to understand the nutritional content first. That's where nutrition labelling comes in.

The new version of the general rules for nutrition labeling of prepackaged foods requires that saturated fats (acids) and sugars be added to the original labeling content, and at the same time, the label "children and adolescents should avoid excessive intake of salt, oil and sugar".

Deng Taotao, an associate researcher at the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that unreasonable diets such as high salt, high fat and high sugar are risk factors for obesity, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases. To implement a healthy lifestyle of "three reductions" of salt, oil and sugar, it is necessary to improve nutrition labels to facilitate consumers to control their energy, fat, sugar and other intake according to their needs.

Deng Taotao introduced that in order to guide the nutritional transformation of the food industry and healthy dietary consumption, the new standard also allows enterprises to use graphics, text and other ways to supplement nutrition labels, such as using familiar oil and salt to replace fat and sodium, replacing "kilojoules" with "card", and can also use the pagoda graphics and core recommended items of the Chinese Residents' Dietary Guidelines to promote a reasonable diet and "three reductions".

Highlight 5: Food labels will be "audible" and "broadcastable"

Can't read the information on the food label? In the future, you can scan the QR code on the food packaging with your mobile phone to see the digital label of the food, and at the same time, you can understand the food information through various functions such as page enlargement, voice reading, and video explanation.

According to the new version of the general rules for prepackaged food labeling, digital labels will be applied to all kinds of food packaging one after another, so as to avoid the problem that some consumers cannot find or see food labels due to small fonts.

"There is no layout restriction on digital labels, and information such as ingredient lists, storage conditions, and nutritional content of food will be more convenient and easy to obtain. At the same time, it can also enrich the means of supervision. Yu Hangyu, deputy director of the first standard office of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, introduced.

According to the requirements of the new version of the standard, after scanning the digital label, the label information will be displayed on the first-level page, and no interference factors that affect consumers' reading of the label shall not be set, such as pop-up windows, information collection pages, etc.

Ensure food safety, make standards more scientific, and make you and me healthier!

Transferred from Xinhua News Agency

Source: China Women's Daily